


Mut

by ColiOli



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Chib's tries to understand, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Juice deals with his past, Juice has a cat, M/M, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 19:57:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColiOli/pseuds/ColiOli
Summary: "He’d spent the last eighteen months clipping together trails of Juice’s last whereabouts in between managing the club as the new President. There had been a few times when he had come close to finding the kid. But instead of finding him in the flesh, Chib’s instead would reveal obscene clues into where the boy was going—and more disturbingly where he had been."A one-shot following the finale of SOA, where Juice survives, and Chib's comes to terms with what Juice means to him.





	Mut

**Author's Note:**

> I felt inspired to write something to add to this fandom. Tell me what you think, or don't. This story will be a bit heavier on emotions and feelings. But despite that, I wanted to give Juice the life that he deserved after SOA (with Chib's of course).

A lone figure clad in distressed denim and a leather jacket hunches below the window frame of a bedroom window sill which suddenly fills with the light of an early riser. The man peers through the cracked glass to see a distorted sight of the person he came for. What he came to finish, once and for all.

The dark of the night begins to lighten from the cracks of light amongst the distant hillside tops.

His victim would be leaving for work soon, but never to arrive.

Now was the time to finally end it all.

*

Each tenderly placed item seemed to have a spot inside the entry room of the home. A bookshelf next to the hallway displays a quick collection of books upon each level, with a single piece of decorative additions next to the empty slot the books have made. Chib’s spends no time to read the covers of these collections of words. The ones with meaning—the ones with impact, will be shoved away in a spot where no idle visitor can glance at and discover an easy way into the soul of the person who lives here.

The sound of a running shower filled his senses as he secretly twisted the door handle of a bedroom and let the door drift open. Closing the door with an inaudible thump, Chib’s placed himself just outside of the bathroom. Peering around the corner and into the steamy bathroom door left slightly ajar, Chib’s spots the pile of neatly folded clothes across the top of the sink. Behind them is an array of burnt orange bottles with white lids lined in a clear row.

Chib’s presses his body further into the wall adjacent to the bathroom door when the shower is halted by the squeak of the faucet. He concentrated on his breathing while it takes minutes for the man to dress himself. Chib’s debated on confronting him in the bathroom.

If he could do it from behind there would be no need to look him in the eye. The reflection of the mirror would be of Juice’s last expression of shock. The image would instantly be smothered by the splatter of vermillion upon the walls.

It would be quick. Easy.

Just as he shifts his weight to one foot to commit to the plan, the bathroom door opens and the unaware young man erupts with steam trailing behind.

Throwing the younger man against the wall, Chib’s presses the barrel of the loaded gun against Juice’s temple. Juice’s eyes enlarge at the sight of who his attacker is. He scrambles frantically with digging nails to desperately free himself from the strong arm that presses his throat into the wall.

“Didn’ think ye’d be so hard ta’ find,” he says as his forearm presses deeper against the man’s throat.

He struggles against the man, but there is no use against it. Submitting, Juice allows the man to press against him. “Guess you did,” he grunts between struggled words.

“Aye. That I did.” Chib’s words ghost along Juice’s face. He applies more pressure to the gun.

“Finish it then,” Juice eyes switch between Chib’s eyes and the patch on Chib’s chest. “You know you have to… _Pres_.”

His scars are pulled to his ears when he smiles. “That I do.”

He’d only spent the last eighteen months clipping together trails of Juice’s last whereabouts in between managing the club as the new President. There had been a few times when he had come close to finding the kid. But instead of finding him in the flesh, Chib’s instead would reveal obscene clues into where the boy was going—and more disturbingly where he had been.

His finger shifts to pull the trigger. Juice’s eyes snap closed. He takes several quick and deep breaths that cause his nostrils to flare. It seems like moments of agonizing anticipation pass, all while the older man seems to struggle between taking the last breath from the man and struggling to find the strength.

“Maybe I also need ta know some things.”

Juice grunts as he struggles to swallow. “You know everything, brother.”

“I don’t think I really do. And you don’t get ta’ use that word anymore. I ain’ yer ‘brother’.”

“Guess I forgot.” Juice smirks.

His eyes express the same squint from back in the day –when he had been ‘Juicy boy’. The fuck-up for the group, the punching bag, the youngest of them all who was always there to take the brunt of the jokes. The Juice that sported the pathetic haircut that demonstrated his youth. And here he was now… head full of hair, his already slender-frame scraped thin by years of a mental agony that he kept locked inside of himself. When Chib’s adjusts his arm, he locates a new addition to his collection of scars upon Juice’s body. How many knives have pierced through the flesh of this young man since he has known him? But this one is different. This one was meant to be quick and painless. The clean swift blade drug into the boy’s neck, severing the carotid artery. This was a wound meant to kill. But out of everything, its Juice’s eyes that disturb him most. That once-before typical ‘Juice sparkle’ is replaced and burdened by something else.

It’s those eyes that bother Chib’s the most. He finds himself contemplating the details of the past, and where did everything go _so wrong_? He can’t help but collect memories, desperately picking them from the floor all while scrambling to tape the clues back together and on the wall so he can trace the moments he had missed that would have changed where he was now.

He never wanted to be the one to pull the trigger.

“You fucked up boy!” Chib’s grabs Juice’s shirt in a ball of his fist and lifts the young man’s body before slamming the him back into the wall. “I tried to help ye’ boy! I bloody tried!”

A shimmer releases in Juice’s eyes. His face tightens, and with a shallow breath Juice allowed himself an admission he had been holding in for years.

“You couldn’t ever save me Chib’s.”

It’s a hit directly to his inner gut. His grip against the boy relaxes. His grasp on the gun eases slightly from where it kisses flesh. For a moment he almost caves. For a moment, the boy almost wins.

Chib’s recalls all the times Juice has fallen apart in front of him. Out of everyone, it was always Chib’s that Juice opened himself up to. He’d allow himself to break in front of the man. He’d willingly peel away his flesh and expose his inner raw pieces that he desperately needed put back together.

And more than once had Chib’s allowed the tears of the younger man to sway his feelings. Against anger, against fear… he would subside his emotions and allow himself to accept the boy with open-arms.

And just like now, those tears that roll out of gentle eyes which are both frightened and damaged, seem to carve right into Chib’s skin, where he can feel himself become persuaded. Just like before… at the broken branch of a tree that had been swayed under.

“Nah, you don’ get ta’ cry anymore. Yer’ tears won’t save you.”

“I know,” Juice whispers. “I figured that out on my own.” Juice allows his grip on Chib’s forearm to fall. His hands relax at his waist. “When you do it broth- Chibs, please just do one thing for me.”

“Ye think yer’ in the position to ask fer favors, boy?”

“It’s not much. Please. It’s the only thing I ask.”

“Aye, spit it out then,” he growls.  

“My cat. I have a cat. Please, just bring him two houses down. The old lady with the green porch—take my cat there. Tell her I dipped out of town.” A single tear slithers down his cheek. “ _Please_ , Chibs.”

Chibs scoffs. “Out of everything boy, a bloody cat?” Of course he knew of the cat Juice spoke of. He’d watched the boy scratch the filthy thing behind the ears in the mornings before work since he had been watching the boy beneath the window for several days. The boy had some pathetic ritual with the creature that Chib’s could never grasp to understand. But for his last words to bank on the welfare of some pointless creature?

“It’s all I got left man.”

“Not gon’a beg for yer life? Sell out information for some club you got tucked away elsewhere?”

“You can believe what you want. My side of events would have meant nothing to you guys with Jax making your decisions. I never intended to sell out the club. It was never like that.”

“The fuck if it wasn’t! You were just a pathetic piece of shite that couln’ deal with yer own problems whether or not yer brothers were hurt by them.”

“I never meant to hurt you guys.” Another tear falls before slipping from off his quivering chin. “I swear that.”

He growls deep in his throat, and his Glasgow scars twist morbidly as he spits the words, “You were the biggest mistake to our club.”

“Say anything you want. You can’t take anything else from me.” Juice grins, his face holding onto the emotions. His eyes hold back the tears that threaten to unleash. “Just. Do. It. _Please_.”

“I warned ye’ to get the hell away! And what the hell did ye do instead? Why Juice? Why didn’ ye just run? It’s all ye e’er been good at.”

“I wanted to help. And I fucked it all up man. I know I did. But please… just let me end now. I can’t do it anymore. It was supposed to end in that jail with S-…” He falters, his face screwing up into a tight ball of emotions before he works to compose himself. When he does, his words were carefully articulated. Robotic. False. “It was supposed to end. I tried to do it for my brothers.”

“We thought you were _dead_.”

“I was supposed to be. It’s what Jax wanted. Its what I wanted.” His composure falters on his next words, hanging onto each one as if they hurt more than anything else he has already said. “It’s what _you_ wanted.”

“I ne’er wanted that. Not for one bloody minute!” For a brief instant Chib’s words feel as if they ball up and catch themselves in his throat. He composes himself, his eyes darken on the boy. “Now this is what I got ta’ do. For Jax.”

“Do it.” Juice smiles. “For Jax.”

There’s a moment when Chib’s can hardly resist the urge to shake the boy. Where was his bloody fight? Where were his desperate tactics to try and stay alive? Where was his cowardice? What had become of this boy over the last several years?

Chib’s presses the gun back into Juice’s head. He lowers his head and looks to the left. He rocks back and forth, in deliberating effort to finish the job.

There are some missing pieces to the display of memories that he needs to discover, before he can make this whole fucked up scenario make any sense in his mind.

“I need ta’ know. What the Chinese, and the Aryan brothers said? Is it true?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I think you know _what_. Is it true?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know damn well!”

Juice sighs. “Would it make it easier, or would it make it harder for you, if you knew the truth?”

Chib’s raises his eyes to meet with the younger man. Their eyes connect, and in that moment –the way Juice has never been confident in himself… but for fuck how confident he is now…

“Aye. Then it’s….”

_True._

His grip on the boy falls. He lets the weight of the truth pull his body backwards until the edge of the bed presses to the back of his legs. Allowing the weight to pull him down to the bed, he takes a seat upon the bed and feels the strength of the what the truth has set in. He allows the gun to fall slack in his grip, casting it on the bed beside him.

It takes several minutes for Juice to move. He slides to the floor. He runs a trembling hand through his head before clasping his fists to his lips. His lips tremble, while soundless tears spill from his eyes. Chibs does nothing this whole time. He is lost in the truth. Instead of finding justification in it, he realizes he is more lost now than he had been before. Staring at the wall next to Juice’s head, he finds himself feeling hollow on the inside. Empty.

It was supposed to be easy.

They sit like this for some time. The weight of the truth crushing the two of them down to where they remain.

This whole time, Chib’s wanted to believe it wasn’t the truth. Sure, he’d heard rumors within the next few months after Jax’s death. At first those rumors were meant to be taunts from the Chinese and the Aryan brotherhood. No one in the club had focused on those words spread by others. No one, except for Chib’s. He’d collected those words into the back of his mind where he had filed them away to think on it later. But even then, he hadn’t believed them. But over time when those rumors refused to die, Chib’s began to suspect that their resilience to fade away spoke greater volume than he originally believed.

There was a time about eight months back when he had found where Juice had been staying. He’d arrived before Juice was expected to come home. Something must have tipped the boy off because he never did arrive home that evening, nor did he return to that dwelling.

Chib’s had tucked himself in the bedroom closet for hours. If it hadn’t been for the cracked closet door that allowed a stream of light to bleed into the closet, he never would have noticed it. Chib’s had known Juice for many years. If there was one fact that could easily be identified to Juice, it was that everything had a place. For there to be a book carelessly thrown to the top of the closet shelf was troubling enough that Chib’s allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. When Chib’s read the book’s cover his gut clenched into a fist of its own.  

“ _A Survivors Journey… Steps Through A Lonely Path.”_

The book had been cursed with words like ‘assault, victim… _rape_ ’.

And all this time of hunting the younger man down… with the truth in the open, he can’t find the strength or will to pull the trigger.

They sit this way until the day’s light has fully begun to wash itself into the bedroom. It’s eventually Chib’s who speaks. It’s him who draws the line to this mess.

He stands up from the bed and picks up the gun. Placing the weapon into the inner pocket of his vest, he makes his way to leave the bedroom. Stopping before the door, he glances down at the younger man still pressed to the wall.

“We’re done here. I don’ want to see you around. You hear?”

It’s crushing to see that the man who thought he was about to die, who hears his life has been pardoned, doesn’t smile or show any relief to it. It’s the mention that he’s not welcomed, and that this is the end of them that causes the man to break down.

But Chib’s is done here. He walks out of the bedroom and from the house. Two blocks down he mounts his ride and throttles the engine to life before taking off down the street.

Despite his failure today, he feels like he instead has gained something new –whether more painful or confusing, he does not know. But there is some relief in what he finds in himself and that to him will give him the strength to know he made the right decision.

Maybe all this time it wasn’t the death of Juice he had been looking for these last months.

Perhaps it was about finally knowing the truth.


End file.
